Since All That to the Wall, the upcoming full-length album from the Narrator, leaked last week, I’ve found it difficult to listen to any of the other big name albums that also found their way into advance digital formats (namely Pelican, Modest Mouse, Caspian, Bill Callahan, Shannon Wright, and The Sea and Cake). Whereas its predecessor, 2005’s Such Triumph, forced its songs to emerge out of a messy, snotty aesthetic, All That to the Wall unsurprisingly cuts most of this fat. Sorry “Crapdragon” and “Roughhousing” devotees; this album steadfastly avoids feedback fests in favor of chiming guitar hooks and sturdier song structures. Such Triumph benefited from its riotous energy and vaguely threatening cacophonies, but All That to the Wall makes far more sense veering toward maturity (a mid-tempo break in the middle covers both “Panic at Puppy Beach” and a cover of Bob Dylan’s nearly forgotten “All the Tired Horses) than holding on to raging youth too long.

“Son of the Son of the Kiss of Death” opens the record with a canned drumbeat and a newfound precision, leaving the messy lines for the throat-searing vocals. Along with the clear single “SurfJew” and the surging “Breaking the Turtle” (“And this is a song for / All the Nascar generation / The more they sit there / They’re just gaining momentum”), “Son of the…” seems noticeably better than many of its neighbors on the first listen (much like how “This Party’s Over” and “Ergot Blues” initially stood above Such Triumph), but after further inspection, the gap between these songs and the “album tracks,” if that term is still viable, decreases noticeably. “Chocolate Windchimes” wears its closing introspection far better than the down-tempo moments on the last album. “All the Tired Horses” makes perfect sense for a melancholic end to the first side of the album, provided that it’s pressed to vinyl. “Papal Airways” dusts off the enthusiastic background vocals and handclaps of “This Party’s Over.” Considering how All That to the Wall is the product of two fill-in drummers (from Russian Circles and the Oxford Collapse), it’s astonishingly coherent.

Pencil this one in for my top ten of 2007.

In related news, I saw Chin Up Chin Up at Great Scott on Sunday night. (Flameshovel Records guy and the Narrator singer/guitarist Jesse Woghin moonlights as CUCU’s bassist.) The crowd looked like a Charlie Brown Indie Rock Special, bouncing around like popcorn kernels to the more energetic moments of the band’s two full-lengths. It struck me how much clearer the chorus hooks came out live, particularly on the title track to We Should Have Never Lived… and “Virginia Don’t Drown.” After their set I talked to Jesse for a while, finding out that the Narrator should tour later in the spring (April or May), may press All That to the Wall on vinyl (I “pre-ordered” a hypothetical copy), and have a new drummer. You, too, should go see CUCU on their tour and put your name down for a vinyl copy of All That to the Wall.